Imagine the irony that is the fact that The New York Times has had some of the best coverage of the National Rifle Association’s ongoing soap opera. The latest chapter involves big dollar donors rebelling against the NRA’s Executive Director Wayne LaPierre and his cronies at HQ in Fairfax.

Reports say that a handful of donors with pledged future donations of $134 million have paused those giving agreements. In short, they are demanding that the now “radioactive” LaPierre resign along with his corrupt cronies who make up the current NRA leadership.

Even as the National Rifle Association has been consumed by relentless and increasingly public infighting, Wayne LaPierre has maintained a firm grip on its leadership.

Now one of the gun group’s major benefactors says he is preparing to lead an insurgency among wealthy contributors to oust Mr. LaPierre as chief executive, along with his senior leadership team. Such a rebellion would represent a troublesome new threat to Mr. LaPierre, as his organization’s finances and vaunted political machine are being strained amid a host of legal battles, most notably the New York attorney general’s investigation into its tax-exempt status.

David Dell’Aquila, the restive donor, said the N.R.A.’s internal warfare “has become a daily soap opera and it’s decaying and destroying the N.R.A. from within, and it needs to stop.” He added, “Even if these allegations regarding Mr. LaPierre and his leadership are false, he has become radioactive and must step down.”

Until that happens, Mr. Dell’Aquila, a retired technology consultant who has given roughly $100,000 to the N.R.A. in cash and gifts, said he would suspend donations — including his pledge of the bulk of an estate worth several million dollars.

He said he was among a network of wealthy N.R.A. donors who would cumulatively withhold more than $134 million in pledges, much of it earmarked years in advance through estate planning, and would soon give the gun group’s board a list of demands for reform.

Carolyn Meadows, the N.R.A.’s president, said in a statement that “we are disappointed whenever donors choose to suspend their support of the N.R.A., but we hope to win them back.” She added: “People may resist change, but they embrace progress. We’re experiencing that right now at the N.R.A. There’s an energy within the N.R.A. that is hard to describe — and we continue to earn the support of millions of loyal members.”

The energy that’s “hard to describe” has been described to me by people in a position to know as one of distrust, disgust, dismay and disunity.

As far as Mr. Dell’Aquila, he shared some of his thoughts on improving the NRA with TheTimes.

His demands include the resignation of Mr. LaPierre and his senior leadership in time to put in a new team for the 2020 elections. In addition to Mr. Cox’s return, he wants Allen West, an N.R.A. board member and former Tea Party congressman opposed to Mr. LaPierre, installed as the group’s president. (Some of Mr. Dell’Aquila’s demands echo those of Mr. West and others.)

He would also shrink the board to 30 members from 76; stop paying consulting fees to board members; dismiss the N.R.A.’s accounting firm, RSM; remove past presidents from the board; and cut costs by holding meetings in central locations. He lamented that an upcoming board meeting was to be held in Alaska: “What are the optics of that?” he said. “It’s negative. It’s self-inflicted.” He adding that the N.R.A. could find board members who “would do this for free, and it keeps us clean in the liberal papers.”

Put another way, Mr. Dell’Aquina seeks to drain the NRA swamp. However that would entail the swamp dwellers leaving their cushy gigs, fat salaries and accumulated power behind. As if that’s going to happen without a much bigger fight.

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I have been a “bigger than normal donor”, but I am seriously cutting the size of the donations until the situation is fixed. I am also not making a large one time donation I had planned, and have changed my will for the time being.

I am still giving some money – the NRA must survive long enough to get rid of the paid staff and Board Members that created this problem and then rise to hopefully an even better future.

I don’t have millions but I am not a pauper. I’ll be changing my will next week. I was going to leave enough to keep LaPierre in clothes for a few months but I’m done unless I see some rapid and serious change. The window to get me back isn’t going to be open for very long. I’m looking at other organizations and I’m asking others to join me. The door is opening and when it slams shut I won’t be back. So I hope the NRA leadership is listening. Once their gone your membership won’t be coming back! LaPierre, is this going to be your legacy?

They were not going to get anymore of my hard earned money for some time now. But after Cox went on his rant in support of Red Flag confiscations in the name of the NRA I became determined to fight to end the NRA any way I can. They ARE the enemy of the POTG.

He already cashed-out his multi-million dollar retirement package (during a cash shortage, might I add) and then borrowed against both his executive life insurance policy as well as the NRA-ILA. I think he’s set, and could flee the country in a banana boat if he had to, and still live comfortably…which makes it all the stranger that he’s still sticking around to muck things up.

You do you but the other day someone posted that they return the mail the nra sends with a letter that simply states “not another dime until Wayne is gone” and returns it. This may be better than the shredder because the shredder allows Wayne an his team to simple say this guy didn’t get the mail, didn’t want to donate, or maybe claim you are dead but your son/daughter may get it and start donating in a different name instead. Sending back mail demanding a step down eliminates all of those hypotheticals. Just something to ponder but it sounded good to me.

Bingo! I’m even willing to drop my standards, and rather than agreeing to rejoin on condition of election of Adam Kraut (or similar) the Board, I’ll simply accept LaPierre’s resignation. I don’t know if ditching Wayne will enable the NRA to survive this scandal, but it damn sure won’t so long as that bastard is at the helm.

“David Dell’Aquila, the restive donor, said the N.R.A.’s internal warfare “has become a daily soap opera and it’s decaying and destroying the N.R.A. from within, and it needs to stop.” He added, “Even if these allegations regarding Mr. LaPierre and his leadership are false, he has become radioactive and must step down.””

Yes! YES! Nail those theses to the fucking door of headquarters! The only suggestion I’d add is a reformed ballot system;
-Voting rights based upon duration of active membership (repeat donations, trainer status, attendance at NRA events, etc.), more than simply paying a certain amount
-Disband the BoD ‘nominating committee’ farce, and make ballot selections based on petition again
-Erect a means for the membership to both vote “no confidence” in the NRA Board as a whole, as well as to petition to have individual figures placed on the ballot for recall
-Independent ballot certification and election oversight

Encouraging news.(for a change) Next I would like to see a class action suit to have the BoD removed for mismanagement if they won’t go peaceably. I would be more than happy to kick in a few years worth of dues money to see that happen.

Good! Down with LaPuke!! 2017 was the year for the following items we were promised, and some that were thought about;

1) Hearing Protection Act.

2) Removing Short Barreled Shotguns, Short Barreled Rifles, and AOWs from the NFA, ENTIRELY.

3) Some sort of National Reciprocity.

4) Strengthening the PLCAA to protect advertising of firearms and their related products from reckless, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP Lawsuits).

5). Repeal of the 1989 Firearms Import Ban.

6). Remove the “Sporting Purpose Clause” from the 1968 Gun Control Act.

7) Remove Marijuana Use from being a lifetime prohibition of 2nd Amendment Rights with no chance of Expungement.

8). Amend that disgusting “Lautenberg Amendment” to force all charges of Domestic Violence to go before a Trial By Jury of one’s own peers and remove it as a lifetime prohibition.

None of those things came to fruition when we had our best opportunities for them. We as gunowners can get soft and weak just because the NRA has fucked us over. If that happens, and if you as a gunowner refuse to do anything other than complain, bitch, whine, and moan, just give up your guns now and get out of the way!!!

We need to keep being engaged in political activism, and re-up the NRA when LaPuke and his scumbag lapdog are ousted.

The board has the power, but it’s full of toadies and absentees, so it won’t. I think the board should be pared down to a dozen or so. Multi-billion dollar companies, like GM or Apple, have fewer than that. Make an Advisory Board that can be big and have the celebrities, honorees, and people who want a bigger voice. Limir the Board of Directors to people who will attend meeting and be fiscally (and legally) responsible. Enforce a conflict of interest policy that prevents payment to board members, their companies, or their families, other that as a salaried executive.

Perhaps so. Maybe they think that such a large sum of money will give some in the organization an excuse to do right.

It may also simply be the case that they think they have enough money to make the difference. I understand the excitement of many posters thinking that a small number of big donors can make a difference. But, the irony is that no board worth it’s weight in salt, particularly the board of a non-profit or one umbrellaing non-profits, would bend to the will of a small group of large sum donors donors. A board that would do so is the worst kind of board, their focus should be the mission. The loss of a large number of members producing a smaller sum should be a better indicator of mission drift to the board, thus having more influence.

“But, the irony is that no board worth it’s weight in salt,…would bend to the will of a small group of large sum donors donors.”

Not even if the board came to understand there will be no board, no organization so long as corruption runs rampant? Or is a board that declares by action, we don’t care about losing money wholesale, so long as we get our gots retail, even more corrupt for ignoring the golden goose(s)?

If the membership cannot salvage the NRA, and big donors cannot salvage the NRA, based on what pure hope could the NRA be re-oriented?

BTW…it’s not that we hope a few big donors can tame the beast, but that complete financial collapse would result in rats fleeing the sinking ship.

“Not even if the board came to understand there will be no board, no organization so long as corruption runs rampant?”

Ah, you’re confusing the board I was referencing that is worth its weight in salt with the NRA board. It is fictitious in this case, just to point out the irony. A board worth its weight in salt would not find itself in the predicament as you describe. The NRA board is not that board and, as a whole, is part of the corruption you reference. In fact, it is the heart of the corruption. Don’t get me wrong, Wayne may have orchestrated the corruption of the board, but the board did not stop it, and the board built the momentum of the corruption.

“If the membership cannot salvage the NRA, and big donors cannot salvage the NRA, based on what pure hope could the NRA be re-oriented.”

None. But I did not propose that they could not. The point was that a good board (which the NRA board is not) will look at a single donor (or very small group) using a massive sum of money as an attempt to buy the organization, and the very specific demands would even make it worse. Thus the irony. But, a much larger group of donors, even if they controlled less money, would be seen as a reason to either evaluate mission drift, or consider altering the mission (again, by a good board, which is not the NRA board. Thus the irony).

“BTW…it’s not that we hope a few big donors can tame the beast, but that complete financial collapse would result in rats fleeing the sinking ship.”

Agreed, and mine to. This is “the excitement of many posters” I referenced which is what made me think of the irony I apparently did not clearly communicate.

Seeing all of this unfold almost makes me wish I had not stopped my membership decades ago when I came to the conclusion that the NRA was playing the role of Lucy holding a football and I was Charlie Brown, just so I could be one of the many member voices which will result in change now. Almost.

“Seeing all of this unfold almost makes me wish I had not stopped my membership decades ago…”

Join the snail mail crowd, and just flood NRA headquarters with proclamations of protest. It would take them forever to figure out if all the mail is from only members. Sent two envelopes yesterday. Simple notes: “Not one more inch” and “RTKBA, no exceptions.”

(b) Elected Salaried Officers. Any Officer elected by the Board of Directors who is a salaried employee may be suspended with or without cause and with or without pay at any time by the Executive Committee by a three- fourths (3/4) affirmative vote of the members of the Executive Committee present at any regular or special meeting. Such suspension shall tw effective until the next meeting, either regular or special, of the Board of Directors. Any_ sm:h Officer may be fired and removed w1th or without cause at any time by the Board of Directors, by a three-fourths (3/4) affirmative vote of the members of the Board of Directors present at any regular or special meeting of the Board of Directors. No vote on removal may be taken unless at least fifteen (15) days notice in writing shall have been given to the officer of the charges preferred and of the time and place of the meeting of the Board of Directors at which such charges shall be considered. Notice of time, place and object of such meeting with full copy of the charges preferred shall be mailed to each member of the Board of Directors at least fifteen (15) days in advance of the meeting. At such meeting, the officer against whom the charges have been preferred shall be accorded a full hearing and may be rep- resented by counsel.

I think $134m is enough motive to overthrow one person. Money is the only language the NRA speaks. And one guy costs the company that much money? It’s like a wanted poster with a substantial reward and all they have do is throw one person out on his ass.

As a Life Member and Nickel & Dime Donor, I agree. Transparency must be absolute for an organization like the NRA, especially in light of the current Anti-Gun Agenda of the Political Left. Even the accusation of impropriety is fodder for the Left, regardless of the veracity of the accusation. In sucha climate as this, the organization would be best served by the accuseds step down from power and a totally transparent and full reaching audit of all of the NRA’s financial dealings.

There needs to be a lawsuit on behalf of NRA Members to hopefully prevent Wayne & Co. from milking every available dime they can out of the organization.
I am convinced they are devoting 100% of their time to building golden parachutes for themselves before they head for the door.

I just renewed my membership because I don’t want to see the NRA fail as an organization. However, while I don’t have the financial resources to make the impact of the large donors, I’ve already determined that the organization will have to clean house before they will get another donation from me. Wayne LaPierre and his coterie of sycophants will have to go before the NRA gets another dime from Yours Truly. If enough members do this, change will inevitably occur. “Money talks; bullshit walks”.

If LaPierre really cares about the organization he needs to step down to save it. It has become painfully obvious that the membership is unhappy with current leadership and want change and now! With the plethora of gun control being introduced on state and federal levels the NRA is sorely needed to combat the onslaught.

They wrote a letter to Wayne, around the time of the NRA meeting, asking him to retire or they will have to respond accordingly. Wayne refused to step down. Then all the drama at the meetings happened and Wayne claimed people are trying to black mail him. Now some of those donors are doing what they said they would do. I guess Wayne thought they were bluffing.

It’s not like it used to be, Wayne. The younger people are not going to accept you as part of the NRA anymore. Your time has come. Eventually security is going to drag you out.

Unfortunately, they are trying to position Cox to replace Wayne if they can’t curtail the rebellion. I heard Wayne removed Cox after he read Cox’s text messages talking about replacing Wayne. Now Cox looks like the victim who was trying to save the NRA.

It looks like the people who care if NRA survives are singing from the same hymnal. Glad to know the big donors want the same things that us little guys want, maybe we will succeed in pushing out Radioactive Wayne and getting the reforms done that are needed. In the meantime GOA and SAF get my donations.

I believe Allen West would make a good leader of the NRA. There needs to be term limits on the executive vice president poisition. However, Dell’Aquila’s demand to bring Chris Cox back is a mistake, as Cox supports gun confiscation without due process “red flag laws”. Big mistake. Replace all the top positions in the ILA with fresh blood.

Gun Owners of America have it right, in that they don’t EVER compromise with our gun rights. Neither should the NRA-ILA. If Eric Pratt were available for the job, he should head up the ILA.

Actually, WLP should have never been elected as EVP, which gives him far too much power. He should have been the Executive Director only – which he is plus EVP.

If control of the Board is regained, the bylaws should be amended to make this impossible. The bylaws actually need almost a total rewrite to eliminate some of the byzantine passages that make it difficult for Board Members to participate in any real governance.

I know it’s nickels and dimes but I even quit the “NRA roundup” when ordering stuff from Midway. Not another penny until Wayne and his cronies are out. GOA…Gun Owners of America is looking better all the time!

Well, I have said before that I quit with the NRA in the late ’80’s, and don’t regret it.
Starve the beast is the only answer.
On the other hand I do support the gun industry.
Just got a new Henry .410 single shot. Sweet!

Dear Mr. David Dell’Aquila….Please, oh please, do not relent and also, please strongly encourage your fellow, substantial, benefactors to close the financial floodgates that have been open to the NRA. The group of you, along with we members, have the power to “drain the (damn) swamp”!

If this drags on into the 2020 elections not only will the NRA self destruct forever but gun rights are gone as well. This could not have come at a worse time in history as everyone who is sane knows the House and the Presidency are going to be Democrat and if the Senate is lost its all over for gun rights when the fat woman starts singing. It does not look good. The only hope is that the Republicans hang on to the Senate and with the corrupt practice of gerrymandering that has always made a complete mockery of democracy they have a good chance of doing just that.

There is hope! In my experience, with an eerily similar organization, it’s big money donors without an agenda aside from those of the organization that set problems like NRAs straight. Alan West would be my first choice for Executive VP, Executive Director, or whatever title a reorganized NRA needs. Chris Cox minimally needs a good vetting to see what his own views really are before reinstatement as some ILA sponsored measures might have been forced on him by La Pierre. Lobbying is an art that some are not good at and Cox seems to know how.

I have thought about the donation of a fair sized gun collection and maybe a five figure or so bequest, but have done nothing yet. If this gets sorted out to my satisfaction I might still follow through.

Carolyn Meadows, the N.R.A.’s president, said in a statement that “we are disappointed whenever donors choose to suspend their support of the N.R.A., but we hope to win them back.” “We’re experiencing that right now at the N.R.A. There’s an energy within the N.R.A. that is hard to describe.”

Carolyn I can describe it,Wayne,you and any of his sycophants,Have To GO Now,he has with the aid of said sycophants have utterly destroyed the organization over time. Go Now and Don’t let The Door Hit Any Of You In The Backside.

“If this drags on into the 2020 elections …………. gun rights are gone as well.”
How about we all agree to send money to GOA and SAF?
Unlike the NRA, they are no compromise when it comes to our 2nd Amendment Rights.

Before y’all break your necks jumping to conclusions based on anything factual, please stop and realize that the “media” who are reporting this, are no friends to NRA nor the Second Amendment.
Why not wait for the true facts to come out?

The facts in the form of documents have already surfaced. Many of us that attended the annual meeting in Indy had copies which is why they shut down the meeting until the next day and then went into “executive session” to keep the membership that remained an extra day out of the meeting.

Those documents are now being widely distributed among NRA members that have been active. Trust me, the proof of inappropriate expenditures is concrete, as well as some of the power grabs and Machiavellian plots for WLP and cronies to cover up their actions and to retain power.

Why don’t you pull your head from your ass and bother to check whether the claims they are making are factual or not?

Your ‘fave’ sources of news are just as biased, and as a result they won’t even report on this. Case in point, American Rifleman apparently doesn’t even acknowledge any of this current crisis or even North’s departure. Someone with your mindset, that only looks at ‘friendly’ news, would wrongly conclude that nothing is the matter, and the whole affair is fabricated.

The evul liberals are creating their articles using NRA financial disclosure documents –which had damn well better be factual, or they’re in even worse hot-water than we thought– so there is no debating the facts here. The NRA spent the money in the manners described. Now, what you choose to conclude from those facts is entirely up to you, but me? I think it’s odd that LaPierre would put hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal purchases on a subcontractor’s expense account, knowing that the details of the expenses would not be visible to the NRA board that rubber-stamps approval for the reimbursement. I think it’s embarrassing that he personally set a (singular) hot blonde intern up in a very expensive apartment for a summer, and that his wife’s company (she’s a director of Ackerman McQueen) didn’t know about it –especially in light of his tendency to bill them for everything imaginable.

“The NRA supported The National Firearms Act of 1934 which taxes and requires registration of such firearms as machine guns, sawed-off rifles and sawed-off shotguns. … NRA support of Federal gun legislation did not stop with the earlier Dodd bills. It currently backs several Senate and House bills which, through amendment, would put new teeth into the National and Federal Firearms Acts.” —American Rifleman, March 1968, P. 22

NRA Benefactor here. No more contributions until Wayne is gone. Neal Knox tried to point a lot of this stuff out 20 years ago ! His son Jeff is still active for the 2nd and most of what he writes you can take to the bank.

To echo a popular Shark Tank host, and many others in this forum…
The NRA is dead to me!

I’m sorry to say it, but without the type of radical changes suggested they will never see a single dollar from
me. There are other organizations out there fighting for our rights and I will support them instead of wasting my money and time with the NRA.

There are other state and national organizations far more worthy of our time and dollars.
I encourage all 2nd Amendment Rights supporters to do the same.

I am so pleased to see this magnitude of contempt against the self righteous NRA Board and Mr. W. La Pierre. They have clearly lead this organization to the brink of irrelevance at one of the most crucial times in our history.
Is there a comparable organization we all could use to prop up our defense of freedom and our Constitutional rights to position us more squarely on “the right to bear arms”. Perhaps one could be transformed into a sound and solid replacement?
Like most of you I, as a recent Life Member am mortified by the arrogance of these Board members and their outright and blatant misrepresentation of what the NRA stands behind. I too will never again support this organization, including Mr. Cox. If you swim with the sharks long enough you become hard to distinguish.